Videogames: Design/ Play/ Disrupt celebrates the innovative and rapidly changing design field of
videogames coming to the V & A in London this autumn, in what will be the first exhibition of its kind...Press Release

The V&A will explore
how contemporary designers, players and critics are pushing boundaries in playful and radical
new ways. Rare glimpses from the creative process of developing games such as The Last of Us to
Kentucky Route Zero, including original prototypes, early character designs and notebooks, will
be shown alongside cultural inspiration from a Magritte painting to a viral cat video.

From blockbuster titles produced by leading studios such as Splatoon from Nintendo, to
independents such as Journey by thatgamecompany, the exhibition will show the craft and skill
of creating ground-breaking videogame design. These examples will be presented alongside
large-scale immersive multimedia and interactive installations from Minecraft to League of
Legends and investigations of the social and political issues in the field, offering an insight into
the design process, community and culture of videogames.

The exhibition will explore videogame design since the mid-2000s, when major technological
advancements, such as increased access to broadband, social media and newly available means
of making, transformed the way games are designed, discussed and played. With at least 2.2
billion players worldwide, the reach and range of gaming will be examined within creative
online player communities who modify games and create fan art; spectators and competitive
performers at large scale esports stadium events and surprising spaces of the niche DIY arcade
scene. Videogames: Design/ Play/ Disrupt builds on the V&A’s activity as a space for
contemporary debate, which actively collects, displays and programmes digital design.

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: “There is a rich universality to videogames in
contemporary culture. This is the right time for the V&A to be building on our active interest in
videogames to investigate this exciting and varied design field at the intersection between
technology, engineering and broader visual culture, presenting the influences, inspiration and
debates that define it. There is a wealth of creativity to explore, from the craft of the studios to the
innovation of the audience as players. The exhibition will provide a compelling insight into one of
the most important design disciplines of our time.”

Exhibition Overview

The first section of the exhibition will examine the design inspirations, craftsmanship and creative
practice behind a series of individual games. These are created by a new generation of designers
from large established studios to solo independent designers, as well as from a range of other
creative disciplines such as new media and music composition. Highlights include character design
sketches, a motion capture suit, animations and working notes of the creative director from The
Last of Us from Naughty Dog. A visually stunning post-apocalyptic blockbuster,this title is
comparable to a Hollywood production in ambition and scope. Other exhibits include prototypes,
design drawings and desert research footage from Journey, a smaller independent game,
demonstrating how videogames can evoke emotional concepts of friendship, connection,
positivity and love. Also shown will be works that have influenced creators such as Magritte’s
painting Le Blanc Seing, the inspiration for the parallax scenography of Kentucky Route Zero (both pictured above).

Videogames have the potential to consider complex and sensitive subject matters such as
representation, race, sexuality and geo-politics. As tools to make games have become more available
and distribution has broadened, game designers have begun to engage more widely with social
and ethical debates. The next section will present interviews and opinion from influential game
makers and commentators who are leading this discussion such as developer Rami Ismail and
advocate Tanya de Pass. Here ideas about videogames and what they should be are challenged - as
well as how this relates to society as a whole.A selection of works will illustrate such themes including
how do you Do It, a semi-autobiographical game by Nina Freeman which tackles the discovery of
sexuality through dolls and Phone Story by Molleindustria, a satirical mobile video game which
invites players to consider negative effects of their consumption on people in the globalised world.

The third section celebrates the dazzling imagination and collaborative creativity shown by
videogames players in real and virtual communities, transcending the role of the designer to
democratise design on a vast scale. The double-height exhibition space in this section will
feature a dramatic and immersive installation that explores the role of the player as co-creator.

This will show the astonishing feats of engineering and construction undertaken in Minecraft
from the recreation of the continent of Westeros in Game of Thrones to the mass spectacle of
esports tournaments such as League of Legends World Championships. There will be examples
of fan art and cosplay created by enthusiasts who interpret the medium in their own style and
create costumes and accessories to represent themselves, or even their pets as characters.

The playful finale will look at the rise of the grassroots DIY arcade scene, showcasing handmade
arcade cupboards and interactive installations of spectacle and performance. Unusual and
remarkable games made by DIY enthusiasts and creatives will be shown such as Bush Bash by SK
Games, played in a sedan car cut in half and fitted with a display for two players to shoot and
drive. Visitors can also play games such as Line Wobbler by Robin Baumgarten. Created from a
custom-made spring controller and a several metre-long ultrabright LED strip display, it was
inspired by a viral video of a cat playing with a door-stopper spring.

The V&A actively collects digital design and is expanding its collection extensively in this area,
exploring how videogames as digital objects can be preserved and exhibited. Related activity
has included a videogames-themed Friday Late in September 2017 which attracted nearly
8,000 visitors, held in collaboration with a major conference Parallel Worlds: Designing
Alternative Realities in Videogames. Other activities have included the V&A Digital Design
Weekend which features creators sharing their creative process, workshops for young people
about careers in games design, community projects and digital learning programmes.

Highlights of the Exhibition include

1. René Magritte, La Blanc Seing (The Blank Signature), 1965

2. Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer), 2013

A key loan item secured for the exhibition was René
Magritte’s La Blanc Seing (The Blank Signature), a
surrealist painting of a woman riding a horse through
a forest both in front of and behind the trees, playing
with the viewer’s perception of reality. Magritte’s
optical illusion influenced the parallax scenography in
the forest scene from Act II of magical realist
adventure game Kentucky Route Zero (2013) by Cardboard Computer, who were also influenced
by theatre, set design, typography and Brutalist architecture in their approach. The creator’s
playful use of 3D graphics tricks the player’s perspective to create a real-time, interactive
homage to the painting.

3. Character sketches from Journey, thatgamecompany, 2012

Journey, developed by thatgamecompany, is a
beautifully expressive and lavishly visual game in
which anonymous players online control a robed
figure through a vast desert towards a mountain, with
the chance to emotionally connect with companions
along the way. The pencil character sketches show the
important aspects of creating dynamic character
designs that artistically define movements within a virtual landscape. The mechanical
elements of the game were tested through developing a basic 2D prototype, also presented in
the exhibition, bringing together the dual dynamic of art and engineering in the medium.
The pencil character sketches show the important first aspect of this design process in
developing an authentic portrayal of the hero’s journey.

4. Splatoon, Nintendo, 2015

A compelling example of the innovative approach
that makes their videogames appeal to a wide
audience, Splatoon reflects Nintendo’s ability as a
design company to reinvigorate genres, in this
case the online third-person shooter, and discover
new gameplay types. The game, by a young design
team, is representative of the new wave pushing
the boundaries of the medium, centres around characters that transform between human and
squid forms, shooting ink to splat their turf and aiming to cover the largest area. It gives
players the opportunity to portray themselves in street style influenced by contemporary
fashion and level design that reflects urban cool. The exhibition will show a selection of
process materials from the game such as moving footage and concept art.

5. Ellie and Joel character sketch from The Last of Us (Naughty Dog), 2013

The exhibition features original character sketches from
Naughty Dog’s visually stunning blockbuster The Last of Us.
With storytelling and characterisation equivalent to a
Hollywood production, this post-apocalyptic blockbuster
follows the relationship between companions Ellie and Joel
who travel across a ravaged US over the course of a year.
This sketch was developed to illustrate the emotional
development and dynamic between the lead characters.

6. how do you Do it? 2014. Freeman, Butler, Kittaka, Coss

Nina Freeman works with small teams of artists and
programmers to make games which often explore sex and
relationships. how do you Do It? is a semi-autobiographical
game which puts players in the role of a curious 11-year-old
girl exploring the idea of sex. Using her dolls as plastic
surrogates to investigate, the game allows the audience to
understand the discovery of sexuality from the perception of
a young girl. It will be playable in the exhibition.

7. Phone Story, Molleindustria

Phone Story is a satirical game for smartphone
devices that attempts to provoke a critical
reflection on its own technological platform.
Footage from Phone Story within the exhibition
invites viewers to explore the negative effects of
their consumption on people in the globalised
world, referring to sensitive subject matters such
as child exploitation and worker suicides. It constitutes a series of mini-games that illustrate
the stages of coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labour in China, environmental waste in
Pakistan and the Western obsession for gadgets.

8. League of Legends World Championships at the Bird’s Nest Stadium, Beijing, China

An example of the mass spectacle of esports,
(multiplayer games played competitively), the League
of Legends World Championships tournament
attracts tens of thousands of spectators to watch the
professional players in a live atmosphere such as the
Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium as well as a global online
audience of millions. Footage from the event will be
shown as part of the immersive installation.

9. Game of Thrones, WesterosCraft

The building of the continent of Westeros from
Game of Thrones in Minecraft represents the
pinnacle of what is possible to create in virtual
communities. Footage will be shown of the vast
scale and incredible detail of the engineering and
construction created by a dedicated community of
hundreds of people working collaboratively to
build castles, mountains and cities, block by block.

10. Arcade Backpack by UCLA Game Lab

Resembling a miniature replica of an arcade machine,
the Arcade Backpack was created to show a rotating
selection of independent and experimental video
games in surprising settings. The backpack represents
the rise of a grassroots DIY arcade scene and has
enabled impromptu videogames play in a variety of
venues from nightclubs to museums, enabling
unexpected social interactions. At regular intervals, visitors will be able to play the backpack
which will be roaming around the exhibition.

To coincide with the exhibition, the V&A is inviting applications for a Videogames Residency,
from 15 October 2018 – 15 June 2019. The resident will be a UK-based artist, designer or maker
involved in the videogames scene who wishes to develop their practice through working with
the V&A’s curators and learning team to develop new work and engage with the public.